For much of America's history, a certain fascination has existed in American culture with the lifestyle of the woodsman who made the hardwood wilderness his home. over time this fascination has given birth to a collection of romantic traits firmly identified with such a frontiersman. The requirements for survival in a deep wilderness forced the pre-American Revolution era woodsman turned long hunter, to be "Indian," to demonstrate a high level of marksmanship, and ultimately to draw most of his needs from the bounty of the forest. Such requirements tended to promote the popular conceptions surrounding the eastern frontiersman. Looking beyond those legendary traits, though, such a lifestyle was often an uphill path made only steeper by a rather monotonous diet, days spent in endless and mundane labor, and the threat of perpetual warfare born of political forces beyond his control.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the current state of automated guided vehicles (AGVs), sensors available for the vehicles to be equipped with, control systems for the vehicles to run on, and wireless technology to connect the whole system together. With a technological push towards increasing automation and maximizing the possible throughput of systems, automated technology needs to improve for trackless and wireless systems such as vehicles that can be used to move loads in a vast array of applications. The goal of this research is to develop and propose improvements in both vehicle and control system design that allows for improved safety and efficiency. Right now the main issues are maneuverability of vehicles and control systems being adaptive enough to deal with connection issues between systems. While prolonged connection issues will result in a stoppage of operation of any system that relies on wireless communication, intermittent issues can also cause systems to have an emergency stop. I have looked into ways to offload tasks from the central system and allow the vehicles themselves to have more computational privileges such that they can operate in a semi-independent manner. The result is a proposed system that remedies or limits negative effects that currently cause issues with trackless vehicles and control systems working with remote systems that communicate via wireless means.